Caroline Morahan: I’ve known about Harvey Weinstein for years
It’s time to see Hollywood dinosaurs reduced to extinction,
FOR three decades, Harvey Weinstein has been arguably the most powerful man in Hollywood. Films his companies have either produced or distributed have been nominated for 341 Academy awards, winning 81.
He is credited with launching the careers of some of the biggest names in film – and after God and Steven Spielberg, he was the third most thanked person at the Oscars.
But while Weinstein was known throughout Tinseltown as a movie mogul and publicity whizz, he was equally well known as a sleaze.
I’ve never been part of a Weinstein production. I’ve only once been in the same room as the man – I had a film premiere at the Cannes Film festival and encountered him – yet for years I was aware of the rumours.
I wondered how much was exaggeration. I’d been told by a senior staff member on the Jimmy Kimmel show that “any attractive Oscarnominated actress has had to sleep with Weinstein at some point or another”.
I presumed it was inflated conjecture, but as I heard similar stories repeated in different circles, I imagined there must be some kernel of truth in it.
While announcing the 2013 Best Actress Oscar nominations, ‘Family Guy’ creator Seth MacFarlane made a pointed quip: “Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.”
The gathered audience laughed uncomfortably. A confirmation. This was accepted fact – Hollywood’s worst-kept secret. When I saw
‘The ‘New York Times’ headline as the story finally broke, I was gobsmacked. Could it be the mud would actually stick? The mighty tyrant might be held accountable?
The extent of the abuse and the level of manipulation was beyond anything I could have imagined.
Here was a predator who behaved with impunity and stripped women of their dignity on a near constant basis. This wasn’t just manipulating women and coercing them into sleeping with him, this was allegedly rape. The current tally stands at 30 allegations of sexual assault. Six women allege they were raped.
More disturbing than his grotesque appetites was perhaps the conspiracy of silence that surrounded his behaviour and the legions of executives, agents and assistants that facilitated it.
But this is familiar behaviour for a breed of powerful elite. The story surfaced just days before the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s ‘Access Hollywood’ tape.
The principle is the same: when you have the power, or as Trump said “when you’re a star...”, you can do anything. Trump thought nothing of launching himself on an unwilling female and grabbing at her crotch.
Why? Because he thinks he’s entitled to. Because the patriarchal construct of objectifying women is supported from kindergarten right through to the highest offices across the globe. Because vulnerable women, fearing for their jobs, fearing stigma, have remained silent.
While bulletproof Trump bizarrely went on to win the US presidential election, at least in Weinstein’s case it appears, at last, there will be a reckoning.
As I write, Weinstein has been stripped of his Academy membership – neither Roman Polanski nor Bill Cosby were divested of theirs – and he has been struck from the board of the company he founded. Hopefully he’ll feel the full brunt of the law and serve time for any crimes he’s committed.
SIMPLY ostracising one predator from the industry that gave him such absolute power will do nothing to change the imbalances that permeate all aspects of entertainment and in fact all industry.
There is a deep malaise in our society where men feel it’s OK to make lewd or belittling comments. The “take a compliment, luv” mentality has got to change.
The approach has to be multifaceted – from the top down, and the bottom up.
Pioneering actress Geena Davis founded the Geena
Davis Institute to lobby entertainment and media creators to address gender balance, and create strong female role models for children aged 11 and under.
When young girls are no longer depicted as “lesser than” their male counterparts, they’ll dispense with self-imposed limitations and reject external ones.
This kind of balanced programming would have a transformative effect on the male psyche, also.
Imagine a world where women and girls aren’t generally depicted in supporting and background roles, men would no longer presume that is where they belong.
We’re not looking for special treatment – just equality. Financiers ought take note – femaledriven film is big business. On average, films with female leads make more money yet are granted far smaller budgets.
Clearly this is attributed to the huge discrepancy in the number of women in writing, directing, producing and financing roles in Hollywood.
But perhaps the tide is turning. The undisputed champion of the summer box office season was ‘Wonder Woman’. Female director Patty
Jenkins assembled a largely female crew and her empowering story grossed over $800m at the box office.
She’s just inked a deal to direct the second instalment to the tune of $8m. This ranks her as the highest paid female director of all time. We still have a way to go to bridge the gap – Christopher Nolan is reported to have been paid $20m to direct ‘Interstellar’. But it’s a start.
It will take a generation before the grassroots changes Geena Davis is putting into action will take effect. But there is much that can be done right now to tone down the aggressive alpha male mentality that permeates so many industries and institutions across the globe.
In Hollywood, if studio heads committed to having as many female executives as male on their boards, if they committed to telling more female-driven stories, the current gender dysfunction could no longer thrive.
This bombshell could be our Berlin Wall moment. A chance to expose the endemic injustice and make a lasting change.
Before Weinstein’s high-profile legal representative Lisa Bloom copped herself on and fled his side, she pleaded for understanding of his behaviour, saying Harvey was “an old dinosaur learning new ways”.
I’d like to see all such dinosaurs reduced to
extinction.